


I never learned to cook /But I can write a hook /Sing along with me

by lover_of_blue_roses



Series: Poly!Queen Week 2019 [3]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Disaster Boys, M/M, Poly!Queen Week 2019, Stupidity, how did ppl get anything done for the internet, should never be allowed in the kitchen, soft and loving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-15 10:36:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20864819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lover_of_blue_roses/pseuds/lover_of_blue_roses
Summary: Brian has decided to permanently postpone his doctorate and is feeling terribly blue, lucky his boyfriends want to cheer him up by baking a cake. Now if only they knew anything about baking...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Baking

Brian had been working himself crazy in the last month. He had been researching seemingly every free hour he had. He was away for hours, off the the library or to talk to his advisor. He didn't give himself a day off or even an hour off. The closest he came to relaxing was when he tumbled exhaustedly into bed to cuddle his boyfriends.

He had finally decided to indefinitely postpone his doctorate work. This had left him heartbroken and which wouldn't be helped by the fact that the first thing Brian was going to do was visit his parents over the weekend. They'd be so disappointed in him as though his masters wasn't a great accomplishment or as though Queen wasn't him making something of his life. 

So the boys had decided to treat him somehow. And Sunday morning Roger came up with the idea of a cake which gave them just half a day to get one. At first they thought to get one from a bakery, bakeries were fortunately not closed on Sundays. They had flipped through the phone book to find all the bakeries only to find out generally only pastry shops sold cakes. The phonebook tragically didn't give the pastry shops by distance so they had to find them all, look at their addresses and see how many were close to where they lived. The real tragedy seemed to be that there wasn't one near where they lived. Then Freddie was dismayed to find out that unless it was a really big cake like say for a wedding, they wouldn't let you taste. The final nail was the prices. 

So since they couldn't purchase a cake, they decided to cake one even though they had no idea how to do such a thing having never baked before. They weren't quite sure where to even begin. Freddie knew a game plan was key so they first brainstormed and discussed what kind of cake Brian might like the best. While Freddie loved cherries and Roger was partial to caramel, Deaky suggested carrot cake. This sounded like a great idea to them. Healthy, likely to be something that Brian liked and if made correctly produced a moist cake.

This also took care of ingredients as a carrot cake didn't require they go out and buy anything new, like whipped cream or chocolate chips. What it did need like flour and eggs, they already had. 

The boys in true college bachelor fashion didn't have a cookbook anywhere in the flat nor even a recipe written on the back of a receipt. So the plan was that John was to call his family members to see if they had one while Roger and Freddie were to make their way out in the drizzling London rain. Roger was tasked with going to the library and to try to find a recipe and Freddie was to go and ask around with his friends.

They would go until they found one and then each come back and compare. The two boys left before noon while Deaky got comfortable with his address book and the phone. They were all back in the flat victorious in only a few hours.

Roger had found out that cookbooks were reference books in the library and could not be checked out, which was weird and annoying but he had found a book of desserts and had carefully copied down the recipe. Well, part of the recipe. Roger, like a fool, had copied the ingredients and their quantities but had not copied the procedure. Which apart from missing the vital cooking temperature and time, meant they were missing the steps of the procedure that would help novice cooks such as themselves. 

Freddie had gotten two recipes. One straight from Cathy, a lovely old friend from Uni, and the other from Rob Tyrell's cute new girlfriend Ann-Lynn. They had carefully copied in lovely elegant cursive their recipes in inkpen which had completely bled as the rain seeped through Freddie's jacket. Freddie was more horrified by the inkstain than the lost recipes. Roger carefully dried them with the hairdryer and they were still partly legible.

Deaky had called around until he was pointed thoroughly in Beatrice's direction. Beatrice was his grandmother's sister's daughter which made her like his first cousin once removed. She had lovingly and excitingly given him not just the recipe but also every tip and trick she could think of to help him, it had been way to overwhelming but done completely with love.

He had tried his best to copy all that she had said but at the end he had run out of space on his pocket sized sheet of paper. Which meant his normally tight handwriting had been reduced to a scribbled mere-illegible mess.

They put their recipes all on the table and looked at them carefully. The main take away was that not one of them were the same. Different ratios, different ingredients, cooking time, temperatures... They didn't know where to even really begin. Roger pulled at his hair, they just wanted to give back to Brian would who so wonderful and thoughtful to them, this was going to be a disaster. "What's the difference between baking powder and baking soda?" Freddie asks in a horrified voice, clearly out of his depth. 

"I think," Deaky said as though he wielded executive power, "That we should just pick one recipe and stick to it. I messed up with mine, I didn't transcribe tablespoons and teaspoons correctly but I do have the cooking time and temperatures which we should use with Roger's as his is the most complete." Roger had large, bold and clear to read handwriting which is why they had asked him to write the Queen announcement flyers all those years ago. 

"And your frosting recipe," Roger pointed to Freddie who had gone for bonus points by also getting a frosting recipe.

"Mine calls for pecans and raisins, do we want to have that?" Deaky questions.

"Well we don't have any pecans and I don't know where we'd get some. I don't think the grocers has got any," Roger thought practically. "Not to mention it might be too late." Roger couldn't remember if they closed at 4 or 5 on a Sunday. 

"We do still have raisins I think and I'd quite like those," Freddie offered. 

Now that they had decided, they began. They didn't need to be three to do this so Roger was given maestro duties. He donned his glasses, and read with a clear voice the instructions. Freddie pulled out a large mixing bowl and a whisk while John fetched the ingredients. "Two cups of flour." 

They didn't store their flour in anything, leaving it in the paper bag it came in which meant pouring it into their small cup measurement was a trial. Flour dusted up seemingly everywhere but the cup and once that large amount had sloshed out no more came out. "Should I shake it?" John asked very cautiously as Freddie did his best to hold in his rage as he tried to wipe the flour from his satin trousers.

"Very carefully and gently," Roger offered before looking at his fashion soulmate, "We do have an apron you could wear."

Freddie threw his hands up in frustration nearly knocking Deaky and the bag of flour, "Couldn't you- sorry Deaks- say something earlier?"

Freddie went to go slip on the plain black apron Brian wore, "Sorry my dear, there's only one. Would you like-" Freddie almost offered generously.

John Deacon stood there try to get the flour to slide out in a controllable manner dressed in ratted old jeans and a faded t-shirt looking at his boyfriend who was wearing velvet and satin, "No, somehow I think you'll need it more."

After one cup of flour, they more carefully poured the next and only spilled a little. "You could hold the measure over the bowl," Roger ofters once they are done.

Deaky just looks at Roger like he's dead inside, "Geez, thanks Roger."

"Kosher salt," Roger adds without flinching.

"Is our salt kosher?" Freddie questions as they find to kind of salts above the stove top, one that is finely ground and the other that is large salt grains. Deaky shrugs. They decide that is the recipe asks for a particular kind of salt it must be the more unusual one.

They added the salt, the cinnamon and oil. As soon as they pour in the oil, Freddie stirring the whisk lightly, Deaky realises they fucked up. "We should have done all the drie ingredients first, we only have one measure. It'll need to be washed before we can add like the sugar."

Deaky washed the measure, as Roger got busying finding the vegetable peeler and then peeling the five carrots needed. Freddie added the four eggs that are called for. Deaky dried the cup measure the best he could before they added the sugar and vanilla sugar as Roger read from the recipe. "Do you know where the grater is?" Roger asked as he stuck his head into the cupboards.

"We do have a grater, right?" Freddie questioned alarmed.

"Yes?" Deaky hoped, they must? Must they not?

"Is there anything else needed?" Freddie enquired as he whisks more frantically, the batter is lumpy with large chunks forming in it. What could have gone wrong? Maybe they need to add more oil or something? "Does anyone want to take over? My arm is getting tired," Freddie lied, this can be someone else's fuck up.

"Sure, Roger's got strong arms," Deaky threw out as he groped a bicep in passing.

"A shot of rum, and of course got to be an advantage to drumming."

"It being very sexy isn't enough for you?" Freddie teased as he discovered for the first time cleaning supplies under the sink. 

"Well, I'm sexy all the time so I can't let that stop me," Roger returned just as saucily with a wink. 

Deaky laughed as he finally found the grater, "Victory!" He said as he raised it in triumph. 

"Oh my hero!" Freddie giggled, batting his lashes and giving Deaky a big smacking kiss to the cheek.

Deaky started to peel the needed 5 carrots. Freddie fished out their bottle of rum and poured himself a shot that he downed, "You only want one?"

Roger turned from where he was mixing the carrots in, "Do I-?" Roger bursted out giggling. "It's not for me, it's for the cake."

"I'll take one," Deaky said completely deadpan. They laugh as they all get one shot closer to being tipsy. "Is it suppose to be this lumpy?"

"Oh we forgot the raisins!"

They added the raisins and the lumpy batter was probably as good as it was going to get. "Do we have a cake mold?" Roger just realised.

They looked at each other with wide eyes before searching again through the cupboards. "We can use the terrine mold?"

"But then it's not going to look like cake!" Freddie cried.

"I don't think we have a cake mold, why would we? And a pie dish will be too low," Deaky offered as he rubbed Freddie's back, "We are going to decorate it with frosting and Bri is going to love it because it comes from us and we love him."

"I just- He's been so stressed and after telling his dad, he's going to be all wound up, He- He desires to be happy," Freddie said, making an impassioned plea. 

"He knows we want this for him, this gesture will show him this. It's going to be fine," Roger said as he wiggled the terrine mold in front of Freddie's face.

"I guess," Freddie conceded. They poured the batter into the mold, the trouble was that they had too much batter for the mold. "Should we bake two cakes then?"

"We could make cookies! For Deaky!" Roger offered eagerly.

They all loved eating cookies but Deaky's tendency to snack and having such a sweet tooth made them his favorite. Deaky blushed, giggling at the attention. 

"Excellent idea my good man!" Freddie agreed as they fished out a baking sheet. They did their best to scrape the liquid batter into cookie sized puddles. 

Freddie opened the oven to greeted by it's cold insides. "We didn't preheat the oven," Roger said with fatality.

"It should be fine. Brian's not meant to come back for a few hours still," Deaky affirmed. 

"My recipe says 170 and Freddie's says 190."

"We could put it at 180?" Freddie offered.

This sounded reasonable to them so in goes the cake and cookies. Freddie turns the dial but noticed that it wasn't a lot, barely a 1/4 turn of the dial. "Is that really enough?" 

Roger leaned in, this was an old stove, before the legal metric change. "Oh! Well spotted Fred! Crisis averted! This stove is in fahrenheit, 180 wouldn't have been nearly enough," He made scribbling motion subconsciously with his hand. Deaky whipped out the pad they used for the grocery list and a pen, "Thanks," Roger said chewing the end. Roger has a terrible habit of chewing anything from his hangnails and pen caps. He scribbles down some maths to convert between the two. He mumbles, "If it's minus 32 times five-ninth then the revert is celsius times nine-fifths plus 32." 

"I might have the conversion formula in one of my textbooks," Deaky offers but Roger has found the answer of 355F himself.

"As smart as you are pretty, it's hardly fair," Freddie said raining noisy kisses onto Roger.

"He was only able to show off his brilliance because of your cleverness," Deaky offered knowing it would get him kisses too.

"I am pretty clever aren't I?" Freddie said as he lifted his chin for both of them to kiss in his turn.

"Clever enough to have chosen such handsome boyfriends," Roger teases as he wraps a lock of John's hair to get him in a kiss. "We've done good work today, we might deserve a reward ourselves."

Deaky squirms out of Roger's hold. "It's not that I don't want to, I-" Deaky blushes as though he was a still a virgin, "Anyways but the frosting first." 

"Oh clever," Roger complimented with heat in his gaze.

"And responsible," Freddie tack on.

"One of us should be," John mumbled. 

"I- I can't read this, Deaky on maestro duty," Roger said as he squinted at the chicken scrawl, trying to decipher it. 

"3 cups of powdered sugar, 1/3 cups of butter not melted, and 1 1/2 tsp of vanilla, 2 tsp of milk." John read out so quickly that they can't even fish out the ingredients. 

"No wait, slower, I can't hold all that in my head," Roger tried as he only finds sugar. "Powdered sugar is just ground up sugar right?"

They look at each other, no one knows but they hope. Roger measures out the needed amount of sugar and then enjoys himself reducing it to powder with Brian's mortar and pestle. 

They mix it all together and unsurprisingly the frosting tastes delicious. The texture is also relatively smooth and nice enough for their first time although it is a little runny. 

"Now where were we?" Freddie says as he grabs his boyfriends by their shirts and drags them off to their bedroom. 

"We were deserving something for all our hard work," Roger replies.

"Yes, we've been so thoughtful and kind," Deaky adds.

"Mmm, gonna have to find a way to reward you both."


	2. Chapter 2

They boys were in fact so distracted in each other they didn't hear the sound of the door open as a tired and weary Brian showed up, trudging his over weekend baggage. Brian noticed right away when he entered the smell. It smelled like something burning! He dropped his bag to the floor and bolted to the kitchen. Dark smoke was pouring from the oven and the whole place reeked unbearably. "What the fucking hell!" He pressed a teaclothe to his mouth and nose as he opened the window wide open. He turned the oven off.

He didn't even know if they were home. They could have left this in the oven carelessly as they headed out but still he called out, "Is anyone home!?"

He cracked the oven door open, carefully standing back as blacked smoke poured out. The fire alarm sounded over Freddie distant excited shout of, "Oh! You're home!"

Brian looked into the oven -his oven! as he was the only one to cook with good reason- and saw... Such horrors. This was going to be terrible to clean. Batter had spilled from the mold and had splattered down onto the tray below before spilling over the sides and splatter all along the bottom of the oven and onto the bake element (heating rod) itself. Where it had clearly burned, possible caught on fire and now was completely blackened and affixed to the surfaces.

Brian pushed out a chair and easily with his height removed the fire alarm's battery after so much practice, when his three boyfriends piled into the kitchen. They look around with horrified faces and Freddie's face completely falls.

"We forgot a timer," Roger bemoans.

Deaky shot the clock on the wall a look. "It wasn't- It hasn't been that long though."

Brian stood back from the mess, letting oven cool and the smoke escape out the window. He placed his hands on his hips, so exasperated with the boys after his long tiring weekend and yet... And yet he couldn't pretend he didn't have a good guess as to what happened. 

With his stern posture he corralled the boys into their living room and onto the couch. "We are so sorry," Roger said genuinely and he can see the expressions of sadness in their faces. "We were just-"

"We knew you were upset and you've been working so hard, we just wanted to make you feel better," Freddie jumped on Roger's hesitation. Brian has never felt more like the eldest than that this moment. John is sitting on his hands and refusing to meet Brian's eyes, staring holes into the carpet.

He sighed deeply. "I suppose I am reassured that you had the best of intentions and didn't intentionally make a mess that I have to clean up but I would like to know what happened."

They try to tell him all of it. Roger bemoaned that fact that cookbooks are reference books that cannot be checked out. Freddie showed him the sad recipes with their ran ink and John carefully hints at how it ruined Freddie jacket, although Freddie is good enough to know not to mention it. Roger in his turn carefully pointed at Freddie noticing the fahrenheit to celsius discrepancy. Something that actually surprised and impressed Brian as he had messed up the first time had used this oven. Freddie in turn flattered Roger over his sharp maths skills. 

They emphasis to explain that they don't know what happened after as while they forgot a timer the cake had only baked 20 of its 35 minutes. "You-" Brian can't even express his frustrations as he figured it out well enough. He leads them to the oven where he shows them what's left. "You overfilled the mold so it over flowed, you can't use cake batter to make cookies."

Brian removes what cake batter is left in the mold. He pokes at it with a knife. It being undercooked is the least of his worries, "You didn't put any baking soda. It hasn't risen, while we could cook this, it will come out as dense like a brick. I'm going to see if I can't cook it on the stovetop as the oven needs to be cleaned for all that mess it burn into its walls." 

They all looked crescent fallen, giving him their most heartbroken puppy dog eyes so he throws them a bone, "But other than that the batter looks fine and you were very resourceful in finding a recipe in such little time on a Sunday." Freddie beams but John feels a little condescended to. Brian sets up a bain-marie to cook the cake no that the oven is out of order. 

The oven is too hot to clean right now but having them tell him how much they thought about him and cared about him as he works is good. He makes them clean the dishes from the baking. Once hopefully cooked enough, they are at least eager to share in this hopefully tasty treat. Freddie brings the frosting out of the fridge, hopefully they didn't fuck this up somehow it had tasted fine when they had put it away. 

Freddie brought spreading knives and Deaky and Roger were ready to spread the frosting when Brian stopped them. "No! No, you can't spread frosting on a cake that is still hot, I-" Brian pinched the bridge of his nose. He was trying to take the cake from its mold but it was clear that they hadn't buttered the mold. 

He didn't want to tell them, to make his boyfriends feel worse when they had just been trying to help. There was little choice, they were going to realise. In the end they decide to eat the still hot cake with spoons that they dip into the frosting. "The batter and the frosting are delicious," Brian says honestly. 

"Good to know we can manage to copy a recipe, well almost," Deaky says bitterly.

Brian covers John's hand with his own while Roger wraps his arm over John's shoulders. "What was it that I was told? That everything is going to be alright because we have each other?" Brian repeats the words told to him when he had finally decided to stop school. He looks around at his disaster boys, who definitely and permanently are banned from the kitchen; what they had tried to do despite their complete lack of knowledge on the subject, "I really do love you."

**Author's Note:**

> Between this and my train fics its clear I have headcanons the boys as not dumbasses so much as DumbassesTM


End file.
